EUREKA! FACULTY

From Dr. Lasser, Executive Director of the Honors College - "The faculty research mentors are central to the EUREKA! experience, sharing their dedication, enthusiasm, and expertise with their students. Many students go on to work with their EUREKA! mentors for their entire Clemson careers, eventually becoming colleagues and lifelong friends. We deeply appreciate these amazing Clemson faculty members and all they do for the EUREKA! program and for the entire Honors College!"

Meet some of our amazing EUREKA! faculty!

Dr. Rachel Getman

﻿Dr. Rachel Getman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. In fact, Dr. Getman is the first woman to be granted tenure and promoted to the position of Associate Professor in the 100 years that Clemson has been granting degrees in Chemical Engineering. Her research group uses mostly computational and some experimental methods to understand materials function, in order to facilitate materials design. Most projects in the Getman Group involve understanding the function and design of catalysts, which are materials that accelerate the rates of chemical reactions without being consumed. However, Getman Group members are also working on projects involving magnetic materials, resins, and other functional materials. The Getman Group has hosted four EUREKA! students over the last three years, and they have worked on modeling and experimental projects aimed at understanding how to design industrial catalysts for use in aqueous conditions. Click here to see more about Dr. Getman.

My EUREKA! Experience "Students in the EUREKA! program are talented and eager. They have contributed to our group in significant ways, from helping us to test the robustness of our models to helping design heating strategies for our experimental equipment. We've been truly lucky to have such great students. Highlighting their accomplishments: Grant Hummel has stayed on with the Getman Group through the Departmental Honors Program of the Calhoun Honors College. He has done a significant amount of research and was acknowledged for his hard work in a publication from our group. Erin Mihealsick helped us to design an outreach program as part of a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. She has since been nominated by Clemson University for a Goldwater Scholarship. Andrew Bingham worked with our group for a year and a half after he started as a EUREKA! student. He helped significantly with the design of our chemical reactor, and also developed strategies for synthesizing catalysts for the experimental aspects of our work. He has been acknowledged in two presentations by our group. Anna Hardymon is continuing her work on helping to develop and test our methods in multiscale modeling. She won the Head Counselor position for EUREKA! 2018."

What Dr. Getman has to say about the Honors College and EUREKA! “EUREKA! is an exceptional program. The research aspect provides participants with a way to significantly strengthen their problem solving abilities, and the social aspect establishes a sense of closeness that is invaluable in today's challenging society. We are happy to support the EUREKA! program and the Calhoun Honors College faculty and staff who work passionately to ensure its success.”

Ethan Kung

"Clemson's EUREKA program has proven to be beneficial for both the participants and the advance of scientific research year after year. The last project in my lab originating from EUREKA continued into Creative Inquiry research and eventually was presented at a national biomedical engineering conference. All of the students in EUREKA learn a lot during their summer internships which gives them a significant head start to their college studies; the graduate students and faculty enjoy working with the EUREKA students and hosting them in the lab; and we all help to advance science in the end-- it's a win all around!" Click here to see more about Dr. Kung.

Andrew Pyle

"Dr. Andrew S. Pyle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication. He completed his PhD in Communication at George Mason University, and his MA in Applied Communication from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His research focuses on the intersection of crisis communication and intercultural communication. He is also interested in the ways that organizations employ social media to manage crisis communication. His research also focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, seeking methods for enhancing the classroom experience for students and faculty alike. Dr. Pyle is teaching courses in the areas of Public Relations and Crisis Communication. He is an active member of the Southern States Communication Association and the Public Relations Society of America. Click here to see more about Dr. Pyle."

My EUREKA! Experience "In the spring of 2017 I applied for the EUREKA! program because it seemed like a neat opportunity to work with students on research. I have found that a big barrier to undergraduate students pursuing research opportunities is the time restriction they tend to face during the semester. For this reason, EUREKA! is a perfect program in terms of removing that barrier from the equation. Additionally, one my colleagues, Darren Linvill, and I had some ideas for research that would benefit from the work of a team, so we thought EUREKA! would be a great program to work with to attract clever, highly-motivated students with an interest in research."

"I wasn't sure what to expect when we applied - we'd heard great things about EUREKA!, but come on - we're talking about students who aren't even freshmen in college yet. How high could we set the bar for expectations, really? The answer, quite simply, is that we couldn't have set the bar too high - this was clear from our first week working with our student partner, Paul Gennett. In our first week of meetings Paul absolutely destroyed our expectations with his thoughtful assessments of and critical insights into our proposed research.

What Dr. Pyle has to say about the Honors College and EUREKA! "Simply stated: Our study (completed during EUREKA! 2017 and published in a well-respected Communication journal before December 2017) would never have happened and could not have been completed the way it was without Paul's work. From my interactions with the EUREKA! administrators to our work with Paul, beginning to end, we could not have been more pleased."